


Lingering

by invisible_nobody



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Depression, Mental Illness, PTSD, Self-Harm, Side effects of war, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13391850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisible_nobody/pseuds/invisible_nobody
Summary: Weirdmageddon might be over, but the effects of it are still lingering inside the children who were caught in the middle of it all.





	Lingering

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the tags, TRIGGER WARNING for talk of self-harm.
> 
> Just saying, there's no way that these two came out of that undamaged.
> 
> Please leave a review telling me what you think, and if I should write more for Gravity Falls! (I've been a long-time fan, but this is my first story for it).

Lingering

 

He hated the medications.

His parents said they would help. Help him feel better. Help the hallucinations go away. Help the nightmares to cease. All Dipper thought they did was tell him that he lost control of his mind and body. He didn’t like the idea of relying on the meds. He thought taking medications meant he was crazy. But he wasn’t crazy. Or, at least, he didn’t think he was - not yet.

Clozapine.

Fluoxetine.

Hydroxyzine.

It didn’t matter what the name was. He couldn’t pronounce any of them anyway. His sister would just make up names for her medications. She changed them often and didn’t tell anyone; it was like a game to her. As long as it made her happy, he was glad to play along. But he knew that she wasn’t okay - not any more than he was.

The doctors can’t figure it out. They say it sounds like PTSD, but ruled that out months ago. How could two thirteen-year-olds have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Their parents had no idea. The twins had promised not to tell them. They wouldn’t be believed, anyway.

Sometimes he didn’t take them. Sometimes he thought he could handle it by himself. 

But then he’d be playing video games with his sister, simply sitting on the couch. He’d give a wall a passing glance on his way to look at his sister. His eyes wouldn’t make it to her. He couldn’t look away from the man in the corner, next to their television.  **He** floated.

He’d freeze - lose the game. His gaze never left the corner. He couldn’t move it. Fear. Fear, and panic, and tears. Uncontrollable hysteria in his mind. His sister knew what was happening; it had happened before. She’d yell at him. She’d shake his shoulders. He’d pick his shoe up off the ground and throw it at the monster.  **He** wouldn’t leave.

Then **his** voice. He could hear the laugh. He would cover his ears. He knew it wasn’t real - it never was. But it looked real. It sounded real. That was enough. He screamed, cried. He got up to run. He couldn’t fight this monster. His sister would hold him down. She tried to ground him; tried to use the techniques that their therapist taught them. Eventually, he would come back to reality. He would blink, and **he** would be gone.

Rotten Dorito.

After that, he would take his medicine again. He  _ didn’t _ have control over his mind, after all. Not until the next time he would try to be independent, anyway. His sister never skipped a day, as far as he knew. But she needed her Fluoxetine more than he did. Even on the medications, he never saw her wear short sleeves. He noticed how quickly the bandaids disappeared from their bathroom.

He asked her about it, once. The day he first noticed. He asked her why she would hurt herself. His heart broke when she told him. She didn’t hide it. She didn’t beat around the bush. She looked him right in the eye, with tears. She said, “Because it’s my fault.”

But it wasn’t her fault. He tried to help her know that. He told her every time he saw a new scar on her skin. It wasn’t enough. She didn’t stop. It never got so bad that she required hospitalization. But it wasn’t good. He loved her; wished she would stop. She said it helped. She said she couldn’t stop.

He thought it was called an addiction.

She was still as energetic as always. She still acted like his sister. She bounced and yelled and crafted. But he knew her better than most. He could see it in her eyes. He could see it in her quiet moments. A part of her was dead. Mabel wasn’t Mabel. She was a shell of herself. One that knew particularly well how to look spunky on the outside.

A part of both of them was lost, back in Gravity Falls, Oregon.

And the effects were still lingering.


End file.
